The weather this weekend was top notch. The first couple days of nice weather after the cold and dreary should be a holiday. We spent much time running around doing errands and visiting, but we also spent quite a bit of time outside doing some sprucing up. All the 75 and sunny had me thinking it was time to go get some more flowers, but alas, who knows what the sky will do next week.
Don’t forget to eat your greens this week!
Santa brought me this cute dishtowel, and I love the way it brightens up the kitchen. Plus, it reminds me that warmer garden weather is right around the corner. We are currently trying to grow some radishes, but they aren’t quite ready for picking yet!
I spent most of my time this week finishing up my last orders, and organizing all the Christmas presents. Not much time on the internet this week (although this video is amazing). But do you know where I do spend my free daytime? Our garden.
We had a little caterpillar issue. I think we caught it early enough, and now all the plants seem to be really growing. Those little buggers though. They wake up, and just go to town chomping on plants.
We made our garden beds straight into the ground this season, so its been a constant fight to keep the weeds and fallen leaves from interfering with our growing salads.
But our hard work is definitely paying off! We had some fresh rainbow chard this week, chives on our baked potatoes, and arugula with our scrambled eggs.
In our extra hour last weekend, we planted our winter garden, which we could also call our future salad garden. Lots of lettuce, kale, broccoli, onions, and cauliflower type veggies.
We interspersed the veggies with complimentary herbs and flowers. We had a bit of trouble with bugs last winter, so we are hoping the smell of the herbs confuses the bugs and they leave peacefully. And the flowers are for our friends the bees.
You know sometimes plants are a little wilty when you first plant them? I checked on them the next morning, and they all looked crispy and happy! It just rained for 2 days straight, so I hope they are off to a good start in their new home.
Being outside really is great. Just a couple hours in the faux fall fresh air, and all my cares (except my constant worry about the state of the plants) slip away. I spent some time last week doing a little work around the yard.
There is no number high enough to describe the amount of times I have lost the clippers in the yard.
These flowers lost all their leaves at the end of summer, but they are making a strong comeback now.
I cleaned a bit of the gutter out, and a lizard almost killed me, but the view up there wasn’t too bad.
And to cap off an already pretty perfect day, frozen yogurt with my best friend.
After a hot couple months, the flowers in our yard are coming to life again. And they definitely have a purple trend going.
Our neighbor was adamant that we wouldn’t be able to grow lavender, since she had no luck after several tries. We planted it anyway, and would you look at that.
These asters have been waiting patiently all summer for their time, and we were super surprised at how enthusiastically they bloomed. They literally stop traffic.
A relatively new addition to the yard, but jumped right onto the purple bandwagon.
This was an experimental planting, in a very shady area. Do you have those areas in your yard where you aren’t quite sure what will want to grow there? It seems to be working hard to survive. Bloom where you are planted, right?
We’re doing a little sprucing up in the backyard. The goal is to get the larger shrubs in this month, so they have plenty of time to get cozy. I also have some big plans for a new garden layout.
We needed some more mulch, and I was pretty impressed with myself for loading up, pushing, and unloading this whole cart of tree bits. In the 90 degree weather, concrete parking lot. My farmer muscles come back as soon as I need them. In my past life, I think I was a landscaper.
After all that rain, our backyard grass is violently neon green. It grew out super long, but we were finally able to mow it last week. On our walks around the neighborhood, we’ve been noticing that everything looks so green and lush, instead of that end of summer thirsty look. Just in time for fall.
Couple from over the weekend.
Some pretty clouds on our evening walk.
New plants all lined up and ready to go.
Sunday morning reading time.
I took a little trip to see my family last month. Besides going to the fair, we spent a lot of time in the garden, checking on the flowers, baking cookies and muffins, and playing with fabric. A nice little summer vacation.
guy and his girl 